Weekly graphic. [volume] (Kirksville, Adair Co., Missouri) 1880-1949, 1887-05-13

health, and they are the cheapest
food that can be provided for the
table. They will afford the most
comfort and the most enjoyment
in the family and to fir ends, and at
the same time they are one of the
attractive and profitable features
you can have connected with the
homestead. Now, | fully believe
that everybody should have fresh
fruits on the table all through
thei; season. But as a farm pro-
duct, these small fruits may be
most proftably introduced over a
very considerable section of
our country. Wherever farm
is situated near a town of from
5000 to 5000 inhabitants, or is
near city, small fruit may be
very proftably cultivated, and
may be made to show very re-
spectacle amount on the farmers
balance sheet at the close of the
year. They require more hand
labor and more care, both in grow
ing and marketing than the large
fruit, but the quantity that may
be grown, and the demand that
there is for them, constantly
Increasing demand, makes them a
profitable crop for farmers to grow
under those conditions. :.
Perhaps the strawberry is more
generally in demand as a market
able article than some other
varieties of small fruit. If it can
be grown as our Arlington growers
grow it, it would be one of the
most profitable crop for farmers.
They grow it for one year in the
beds, with the rows four feet a
part, and the plants eight inches
apart in the row. They put in a
crop of vegetables between the
rows. After this crop is taken of,
they allow the runners of the
strawberry to run over the ground,
and in the nextyear theylpick a crop
of strawberries. Then they take
the vines up and put out q crop
of celery, or some other late plant,
thus growing three crops in two
years on the same ground. The
farmer who has plenty Of ground
and can prepare it for setting out
the plants four feet apart in row,
and then can let them remain
until he has raised two crops from
them, can get about three-quarters
as many strawberries the second
year as he can the first year.
And falling off in the crop will be
Offset by what he saves in not
taking up new piece of ground.
After the crop has been grown for
one year, and the berries have
been taken off, the roots can be
cut through cross-ways so as to
leave the plants in beds three feet
wide, leaving a path of one foot
wide between them. After the
second year the grass and weeds
and roots will come in so much as
to make it cost more than it is
worth to keep them out. Then
the best plan is to plough up the
whole thing and not try to raise
them more than two years in one
place.
There is no crop farmer car
grow with a return of SO much
money for so small an expenditure
for fertilizer as the apple. I ask
any farmer to state any other crop
that will produce as much money
to the acre, under ordinary circum.
stances, as the apple, that requires
so small an amount expenditure te
fertilize the land upon which the
trees stand. It is a biennial crop
The trees take every other year te
recuperate. and if you don't rob
the land too severely by growing
a grass crop over the loots o.
those trees, it will require com
paratively little expenditure fol
fertilizing to give you good market
able fruit. But that best market
able fruit cannot be grown if you
cover the roots of the trees will
grass. This is the case always
[ believe, except, where the trees
receive the wash from buildings OF
yards or highways. But if by
light ploughing in the spring, aftel
you have got through planting
your other crops, and by occas
ionally running over the GROUND
with the harrow, you keep it ligh
and stirred up, you will give the
roots the benefit of the rain anc
the dew and the air, and SO il
there is any fertility in the sol
you will yet good marketable fruit
which may be grown with a very
light expenditure forfertilizer.